Supreme Court split on religious school aid
Separation of church, state concerns justices
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court’s conservative majority decried discrimination against religious schools Wednesday in a case that could upend bans in many states against funding religious education.
Though the high court’s decision in the school choice case remains in doubt, Chief Justice John Roberts and his conservative colleagues voiced concern about dozens of state constitutional amendments that block religious schools from getting tax dollars.
“They’re certainly rooted in grotesque religious bigotry against Catholics,” Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh said in reference to 19thcentury provisions in 37 states, including Montana, where parents of children attending religious schools are fighting at the high court to receive scholarships funded by tax credits.
Roberts, who could be the swing vote in the case as in so many others, compared the parents’ plight to racial discrimination.
“How is that different from religion, which is also protected under the First Amendment?” Roberts asked Adam Unikowsky, Montana’s lawyer.
The high court’s four liberal justices defended the ruling of the Montana Supreme Court, which struck down the entire scholarship program – including for secular private schools – to keep the state from funding religious schools, even indirectly.
“There is no discrimination at this point going on, is there?” Associate Justice Elena Kagan asked Richard Komer, the lawyer representing Kendra Espinoza and other parents who want the scholarships for their children’s religious school education. Secular and religious schools, she said, “are both being treated the same way.”
Espinoza, the other parents and the state are fighting over a discontinued state program that offered $150 tax credits to help spur $500 tuition scholarships.
Teachers unions and civil rights groups worry that public schools will suffer. They say a ruling for the religious school parents would violate the Constitution’s principle of separation of church and state.